Reading that conversations are being had about Louisiana-Lafayette and/or Arkansas State moving to the MAC.

Things might get interesting soon. What do you guys think about this?

(03-13-2013 04:15 PM)CajunJuice Wrote:  Reading that conversations are being had about Louisiana-Lafayette and/or Arkansas State moving to the MAC.

Things might get interesting soon. What do you guys think about this?

Not a perfect geographic fit, but otherwise, fine by me.

Very interesting, but I think there are better options.

Hmmmmmmmm.....

UL would provide a currently successful football program on the rise with a lot of flavor, a consistently very good baseball team that has been to the College World Series, a dominant Softball team that has been numerous times to the College World Series and is in the hunt every single year... a Men's Basketball team that is only about 5 years removed from consistant 20+ win seasons (getting back on the upswing after a drought), and a few other solid areas.

Lafayette, Louisiana is a beautiful city to travel to with lots of culture and friendly people.... Lafayette city population of about 150,000 but the parish (or county to you northerners), has well over 250,000, with over 800,000 within a 50 mile radius in all directions.

We have Lafayette Regional Airport which has easy connecting flights from Houston, Chicago, Atlanta. Located at the heavy traffic flow intersecting interstates of I-10 and I-49.

Plus, how can you go wrong with a nickname like the Ragin' Cajuns!! I think the MAC could use some spicing up don't you??

What's not to like? Lots of positives here.

Has there been serious talk about this, or just a couple posters posting rumors on the SBC board?

(03-13-2013 04:15 PM)CajunJuice Wrote:  Reading that conversations are being had about Louisiana-Lafayette and/or Arkansas State moving to the MAC.

Things might get interesting soon. What do you guys think about this?

Arkansas is a stretch but I can swallow it...

Ak and LouLaf I would very much like (if we give UMass the heave ho)

A mouth south, especially that far south is better than east I suppose. Perhaps get them in with the understanding they get conference home games late in the year

Well, stAte and ULL are in the "mid" part of "america" thus meeting certain criteria of the mid-american conference. Hmmmmm.

(03-13-2013 04:42 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Has there been serious talk about this, or just a couple posters posting rumors on the SBC board?

A mixture of both. The reason I say this is because I talked to someone in the Athletic Department a few days ago that said they had a big meeting with other AD's at the Sun Belt Basketball Tourny last week involving numerous options and target conferences they were looking at trying to get an invite from but my source wouldn't tell me which conferences. (I mean realistically I knew it had to involve CUSA, MAC, and maybe even nBE.)

Well I kept this to myself not putting much tought into it. Then just today on the SBC board, an Arkansas State fan posted that he heard from a trustworthy source that 3 schools in the SBC were courting the MAC looking for an invite and that there is a serious possibility of it happening.

So that combined with what I heard leads me to believe that there are some serious stuff being talked about behind closed doors. We shall see.

I personally think the MAC is too far from us geographically, but if it is our life raft to get out of the sinking SBC, so be it.... throw me on board. I respect your conference and I think it would be fun to be the only Louisiana team in the bunch.

While I could certainly see the MAC pausing for a moment and running a rough calculation of what Arkansas State, Louisiana, and WKU do for the league in the battle vs. the A12, MWC, CUSA, and Sun Belt for the brass ring of the higher CFP payout and the fight for the one guaranteed bowl slot, I figure once you start running the math for sports that like to bus and avoid airports if it all possible that the total math doesn't work unless there is some other juice being added (ie. improved second tier TV bringing new bowls to the table).

I'm sure the GNOSF wants Louisiana in the New Orleans mix if at all possible I suspect they'd be rather nervous about MAC teams north of Jonesboro, Arkansas. I know Little Rock is still talking about adding a bowl game but I would think a MAC tie and having to count on ASU being available would make them nervous without someone more regional involved (ie. CUSA or A12).

Tulane to Big East proves weird stuff happens but I would think it would be difficult to create mutual interest in either direction between the MAC or ASU/UL. WKU maybe but they've got their suit laid out for the CUSA press conference.

All I saw from a yahoo! search was a FB page that entitled Arkansas State and Louisiana to the MAC that had 0 traffic.

Well, it certainly would give your fan bases a nice variety of universities they won't want go to in the middle of the week in November.

(03-13-2013 04:48 PM)CajunJuice Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:42 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Has there been serious talk about this, or just a couple posters posting rumors on the SBC board?

A mixture of both. The reason I say this is because I talked to someone in the Athletic Department a few days ago that said they had a big meeting with other AD's at the Sun Belt Basketball Tourny last week involving numerous options and target conferences they were looking at trying to get an invite from but my source wouldn't tell me which conferences. (I mean realistically I knew it had to involve CUSA, MAC, and maybe even nBE.)

Well I kept this to myself not putting much tought into it. Then just today on the SBC board, an Arkansas State fan posted that he heard from a trustworthy source that 3 schools in the SBC were courting the MAC looking for an invite and that there is a serious possibility of it happening.

So that combined with what I heard leads me to believe that there are some serious stuff being talked about behind closed doors. We shall see.

I personally think the MAC is too far from us geographically, but if it is our life raft to get out of the sinking SBC, so be it.... throw me on board. I respect your conference and I think it would be fun to be the only Louisiana team in the bunch.

It was a WKU fan that started the thread. I was just mocking him.

ASU's AD didn't even arrive in Hot Springs until Sunday. He was at a meeting elswhere and didn't attend any of the conference stuff on Friday or Saturday.

(03-13-2013 04:43 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:15 PM)CajunJuice Wrote:  Reading that conversations are being had about Louisiana-Lafayette and/or Arkansas State moving to the MAC.

Things might get interesting soon. What do you guys think about this?

Arkansas is a stretch but I can swallow it...

Ak and LouLaf I would very much like (if we give UMass the heave ho)

A mouth south, especially that far south is better than east I suppose. Perhaps get them in with the understanding they get conference home games late in the year

You do understand that we consider anything less than 55 degrees at kickoff unpleasantly cold.

(03-13-2013 04:52 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:48 PM)CajunJuice Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:42 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Has there been serious talk about this, or just a couple posters posting rumors on the SBC board?

A mixture of both. The reason I say this is because I talked to someone in the Athletic Department a few days ago that said they had a big meeting with other AD's at the Sun Belt Basketball Tourny last week involving numerous options and target conferences they were looking at trying to get an invite from but my source wouldn't tell me which conferences. (I mean realistically I knew it had to involve CUSA, MAC, and maybe even nBE.)

Well I kept this to myself not putting much tought into it. Then just today on the SBC board, an Arkansas State fan posted that he heard from a trustworthy source that 3 schools in the SBC were courting the MAC looking for an invite and that there is a serious possibility of it happening.

So that combined with what I heard leads me to believe that there are some serious stuff being talked about behind closed doors. We shall see.

I personally think the MAC is too far from us geographically, but if it is our life raft to get out of the sinking SBC, so be it.... throw me on board. I respect your conference and I think it would be fun to be the only Louisiana team in the bunch.

It was a WKU fan that started the thread. I was just mocking him.

ASU's AD didn't even arrive in Hot Springs until Sunday. He was at a meeting elswhere and didn't attend any of the conference stuff on Friday or Saturday.

Gotcha, I still think there's some legitimate talks going on though.

This move would confirm the MAC does not care about improving hoops.

(03-13-2013 04:48 PM)CajunJuice Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:42 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Has there been serious talk about this, or just a couple posters posting rumors on the SBC board?

A mixture of both. The reason I say this is because I talked to someone in the Athletic Department a few days ago that said they had a big meeting with other AD's at the Sun Belt Basketball Tourny last week involving numerous options and target conferences they were looking at trying to get an invite from but my source wouldn't tell me which conferences. (I mean realistically I knew it had to involve CUSA, MAC, and maybe even nBE.)

This would add to the rumor that the western SBC schools were fighting with the eastern SBC schools on who should be added to the SBC. Rumors were that Benson wants to add eastern FCS schools and were set to announce App State last weekend and the western schools were upset and Benson called it off. So it makes sense that the upset western schools (in this case Ark State, ULL, and WKU) met at the tourney and discussed their options.

.

I'd be fine with the addition. Would this be either or both? Would this be all sports or football only? Personally, I'd prefer no more football only schools. If it doesn't make geographic sense for all sports, that school will constantly be looking to move somewhere else.

(03-13-2013 04:55 PM)The Optimist Wrote:  This move would confirm the MAC does not care about improving hoops.

1. ULL basketball is only a few years removed from a good program, like CajunJuice said.

2. Football drives the bus.

While I wish that Lafayette wasn't so far away from the base of the MAC, I wouldn't be unhappy (I know, double negative) at all with an addition of the Cajuns and Redwolves to the MAC. With WKU as well, the logistics would be much easier to work out than if they were out on an island like UCF was, even if that was football only. Depending on what UMass does, we might have another spot open for Missouri State to solidify the western expansion. As of now, my preferred choices are JMU and UMass in full, but this isn't a bad plan at all if the cards fall in the right place. Certainly beats Illinois State.

(03-13-2013 04:54 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:43 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:15 PM)CajunJuice Wrote:  Reading that conversations are being had about Louisiana-Lafayette and/or Arkansas State moving to the MAC.

Things might get interesting soon. What do you guys think about this?

Arkansas is a stretch but I can swallow it...

Ak and LouLaf I would very much like (if we give UMass the heave ho)

A mouth south, especially that far south is better than east I suppose. Perhaps get them in with the understanding they get conference home games late in the year

You do understand that we consider anything less than 55 degrees at kickoff unpleasantly cold.

LOL. With our current E$PN deal you'd probably end up playing at NIU on a Tuesday night in November. A WINDY Tuesday night (they're all windy in DeKalb). I think both sides need to think long and hard about that.

If we invited both schools for all sports, we'd still have uneven divisions. We better not add any for football only.